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Sept. i, 1890 The Publishers' Circular >...
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STANLEY AND THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALA...
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ANCIENT COPYRIGHT. js The One Sun of the...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Sept. I, 1890 The Publishers' Circular >...
Sept . i , 1890 The Publishers' Circular > Io 6 7 ; — . j
Stanley And The Australian And New Zeala...
STANLEY AND THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND COLONIES .
A correspondent in Dunedin writes to the publishers as follows : —* I think it was a happy
hit XT for you to publish a Colonial edition of V Stanley —— ' s " In Darkest Africa" and I feel sure
the rw - transaction „ will be a large , one . ... As agent " ~ O for New Zealand I hope X to get C 7 througC 7 h
several thousands ; at present I ant ordering 2 — 000 copies . The excitement here is
tremendous , •¦ JL , and scarcel -m y anything " . *¦•• else „• •¦ but tm . Stanley ™ — «/ is spoken x of : any •/ scrap xof news about
his meetings ^ , speeches , & c , is eagerly read . — I cannot express in writing the tremendous
admiration - all x colonials have for the explorer . Three — - American book hawkers are doing <^ t
terrible damage here by persuading people to buy —a hash-up of Stanley's Travels . ... I am
try ing to bring x some of «/ these canvassers to book . '
In the above connection it may not be uninteresting to quote an open letter which
G 7 X i . Mr . Stanley addressed to those very busy bees in America who have so persistentl X y buzzed
around him : — ' Notice to the American Public .
1 1 beg distinctly to state that the only publishers in America who have any authority
to publish anything whatever of mine are Messrs . Scribner ' s Sons and Messrs — . Harper j —
Brothers . My new and shortly forthcoming work / "In Darkest Africa" is exclusively in
the hands , of Messrs . Charles , j Scribner ' s Sons % f and I cannot too emphatically condemn the ,
conduct of a firm calling itself the Historical Publishing tj Companywhoin the name of
truth and justice , put % / , forth , an advertisement headed " Look out ! Do not be deceived ! "
which is made up of the most barefaced falsehoods . ' The work which they announce as " Heroes
of They the say Dark it contains Continent all " my I repudiate forthcoming entirel work y .
this and statement a great deal . more . I emphatically deny
these ' [ peop have le simp can ly b to y no say possibilit once for y all publish that
honestl anything — — y F appropriated ^ nr ^ of VtbP ~ BS ^ afaa ^ mine ^ W ~^ ^^ ^ JV ^ p * ^* but r ^ p * m from pBi JpLi ^ S what am ** *¦* my *•» . "a , J * W previous f ~ they r afc ^^ S V ¦•* V- ** have ^ h * V ^ ar work W W ^*^ palB dis *» ¦* ¦ s P ^* i - ;
and being an American citizen , and therefore holding time take my copyri measures ght there to , I protect shall in myself due
against 4 1 am such aware proper unprinci that p several led robbery other . publishers
ho are i > e mine mi announcing ne . . 1 I therefore therefore spurious think think works it it hiah high purporting time time that that to
all my good friends in America should be put authorised on their — wk guard work , and will bear be \ called in mind "In AAA that Darkest JL / |« A my
rw -, vv "V * , A * . fT AAA H ^ y VUIAAVVI A » , «^ P ^ f V onl Africa y by , " Messrs in two . volumes Charles , Scribner and will ' be s Sons published .
( Signed ) ' Henry M . Stanley . '
Ancient Copyright. Js The One Sun Of The...
ANCIENT COPYRIGHT . js The One Sun of the which brightest we are of the leased cheap to magazines observe is making , steady progress . p The September
Ir ^***™****—! *——^ . ^_^__^_ ¦ ¦¦ ¦ .. ii i i i i i ii i ¦¦ . p ¦ ¦ ¦
a number scholarl is y and an exceptionall interesting y article good on one ' . Ancient From
venture Copyright to , ' make by J the . Hutchinson following extract , LL . D merel ., we y
observing ^ B 9 that * ^ B _ the * ^ bl entire . A article n b « B should ^ K , b ^ b ^ ¦¦¦ . be read by all who are concerned with the making
of books , or have any curiosity about the condition of ancient authors and publishers : —
work * The s by system large posters of advertising at the bookbinders forthcoming '
doors was the principal one practised in ancient Rome . But the most recent
researches of scholars on the subject seem ^ to show that all the advantage a publisher could
derive from the issue — — — of — — - ^— a ^ bbbbm new ^~ —~ " ^™ M ^~ book ^^ ~~ ~^^ b ^ ^^ m * - ^^ r I ^^^ - ^^^ was ^ br ^^ bP ^ bb- con - ^~ ~^^ b » ^ F ^ " ^ P - ^^^ b 1 fined to the profit that could be made on the
sale of as many copies as could be disposed of before the perfectly legal process of
reproduction by rival establishments should commence . The processas we have seenwas a
very simp •» le « one , and , as reproducers _ , were under no obligation to an authorit is clear
that his hope of making a living off , his books was small . At the same timesuch firms as
that of Sosii Brotherswho issued , the works of Horace and Virg bPibi il , or that of Tryphon bBbbF bb or b
Atrectus , who published ^^ , ^~ ¦ Martial ~— — —^^^ ^» ^ ^^^ and ^^^^^ -r- ^ j b | Seneca u ^^^» ^ PV ^ ^»^ ^ , ^^ had smaller risks than the great publishing
houses of modern times . They required less plant ; they could better control the
proportion between the extent of an issue and the public demand ; and while some surplus
copies then , as now , found their way as waste paper to the shops of the retail tradesmen
the material could be used over again as , palimpsest for the reproduction of new works .
All that the publisher risked was the cost of copying £ . Doubtless - ¦ ~— ~* too bat then bb as bPbbW nowall
books ^ ^ u were ^ ¦ not popular —^ - ~^ ""~ r , ^ m —~ - ^ ^ bp . , - ^ In ^^ ^^ ^ ^^ a , « hi ^^^ ghl ^^ ^~ y ^ p- v luxu "T , w ¦ ^ bppbi - rious agewhen there was just a rage for
authorship , , the vast majorit — y of books must have been of a quality ^ . that _ — _ would .. _ — — excite — _ — no — —
competition among rival houses ; and we may be quite sure that Greek and Roman
publishers were as shrewd as their modern successors in protecting themselves — — against
but peop whose le who work would x the insist public c ^ upon would being not authors o buy , .
Aspiring authors must have paid the cost of their own productions X , and were - - _ - _ probabl A y a
source i Greek of profit and to Roman their publishers authors besides meanwhile — _ -.. .
like authors in all ages , had varied , fortunes _ . , Many of the great names that have come down
to us are known to have had means of living independently of what their literary works
could produce . In the absence of profit from their works many of them had good patrons ;
grateful cities and communities enriched others . Some were not without a keen eye to the main
chance , and sold their works profitably ; others squandered prodigally what patrons or
sue-X X G >«/ X cess sent them , and lived a life alternating between p lenty and povert X y «/ . The fortune
that tradition assi gns to Homer was perhaps no uncommon one for all the early bards who
sang simply because , like the birds , it was their nature to do so . In the great days of Greece
men produced immortal works when glory was the main or only prizealthough substantial
PBt J % A , bBl BBB MBk benefits ¦ sometimes , as in — the case of Pindar .- ^ ,
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Citation
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Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), Sept. 1, 1890, page 1067, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_01091890/page/13/
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